WHEREIS(1) WHEREIS(1)
NAME
whereis - locate the binary, source, and manual page files
for a command
SYNOPSISwhereis [ -bmsu ] [ -BMSdirectory... -f ] filename ...
DESCRIPTIONwhereis locates source/binary and manuals sections for
specified files. The supplied names are first stripped of
leading pathname components and any (single) trailing
extension of the form .ext, for example, .c. Prefixes of
s. resulting from use of source code control are also
dealt with. whereis then attempts to locate the desired
program in a list of standard Linux places.
OPTIONS-b Search only for binaries.
-m Search only for manual sections.
-s Search only for sources.
-u Search for unusual entries. A file is said to be
unusual if it does not have one entry of each
requested type. Thus `whereis-m-u*' asks for
those files in the current directory which have no
documentation.
-B Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis
searches for binaries.
-M Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis
searches for manual sections.
-S Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis
searches for sources.
-f Terminate the last directory list and signals the
start of file names, and must be used when any of
the -B, -M, or -S options are used.
EXAMPLE
Find all files in /usr/bin which are not documented in
/usr/man/man1 with source in /usr/src:
example%cd/usr/binexample%whereis-u-M/usr/man/man1-S/usr/src-f*FILES/{bin,sbin,etc}/usr/{lib,bin,old,new,local,games,include,etc,src,man,sbin,X386,TeX,g++-include}/usr/local/{X386,TeX,X11,include,lib,man,etc,bin,games,emacs}SEEALSOchdir(2V)
BUGS
Since whereis uses chdir(2V) to run faster, pathnames
given with the -M, -S, or -B must be full; that is, they
must begin with a `/'.
whereis has a hard-coded path, so may not always find what
you're looking for.
8 May 1994 1